May's Novel "PUSH" by Sapphire

Our novel has been selected! The novel is short and the movie will be out inMay. We will do our next meeting as a dinner and a movie.

"Don't nobody want me. Don't nobody need me. I know who I am...ugly black grease to be wipe away, punish, kilt, changed, finded a job for"[p. 33]. This is the voice of Precious Jones, a viciously abused Harlem girl. At sixteen, Precious is pregnant-for the second time-with her own father's child, and regularly beaten and ordered around by her jealous, reclusive mother. Though she sits dutifully in class every day-"I always did like school, jus' seem school never did like me"[p. 38]-she has remained completely illiterate. Her life seems set to repeat the self-destructive pattern of her mother's, until her principal sends her to an alternative reading class where, with the help of a dedicated teacher and fellow students who have undergone experiences as harrowing as her own, she begins an intoxicating discovery of words, friendship, and, in the process, herself.
Precious's voice-stark and crude yet filled with raw intelligence and even humor-demands to be heard and, once heard, will prove unforgettable.